Kindergarten Newsletter
March 10, 2023
Religion
We want your child to know that God wants to be with His children, giving them life and rest. The story of Martha and Mary may be difficult for your child to understand because certainly, it was good of Martha to clean and be a good hostess. Most likely, your child has been told many times to help clean the house and they know that it’s good to listen and do what they are told. But it’s also important for your child to know that even important things can distract us from spending time listening to God’s Word. Being a helper, getting exercise, and reading/learning are all valuable. The best thing we learn about is Jesus and His love for us. Blessed… are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Luke 11:28
Picture Request
Thank you to all the parents who have been submitting your child’s baby picture and one additional picture showing your child at his/her current age, engaged in their favorite activity. Digital copies are the easiest and can be sent to witek@stjohnsracine.org Hard copies will be returned. Thanks for your help.
What Have We Learned
Language Lesson Focus – Fun and Fantasy We explored a new piece of literature “Unicorns Are the Worst” This text gave us an excellent opportunity to explore characters and how they can change as the story progresses. In the end, Goblin decided unicorns were pretty cool and dragons really are the worst. We eagerly awaited for the Friday reading of Alex Willan’s sequel, “Dragons Are the Worst”. Sorry moms and dads, there is a page about dragon poop. That will certainly be the most remembered page.
Writing – A comparison between unicorns and real horses helped us jump into our next writing unit on nonfictional writing. We will be choosing a favorite animal to write our own nonfiction book.
Morning Art – These activities were more about fine motor development. We used Play-Doh to create rainbows, and cut straws with scissors to string necklaces.
Afternoon Art – We added a splash of color to the black and white background with a solid-colored dinosaur.
Math – We are starting a unit on addition by taking two sets and joining them together to make a new larger set. The story “Five Little Monkeys” provided a good example of different combinations of the number five. If three are on the bed, how many are on the floor?
Unit 4 Reading Benchmark Assessment – This multi-paged assessment may seem a bit daunting. Please be aware that we completed this over a period of two days. I look at these carefully to determine what skills are mastered by the majority of the class and what needs a bit more work. I saw a definite pattern in the errors on page 54 where a sentence needed to be read. Even with the mention of helpful hints, many of the children looked at only the last word of the sentence to make their choice rather than reading the entire sentence. One way that you can help your child be a successful reader is to give them the opportunity to read to you daily. The half-sheet readers that I send home may be a challenge at first, but with practice, fluency will develop. We are becoming great decoding detectives. Instead of simply telling your child a particular word, help them use their knowledge of letter sounds to “sound it out”. If a short vowel sound doesn’t work, try a long vowel sound. They have been introduced to a wide variety of “secret stories” that help when letters aren’t behaving the way they should.
Theme: Making Disciples for Life
Bible Verse: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20